Wednesday, September 7, 2011

A big part of my day job involves pitching story ideas to various media outlets. The object is to look for journalists and publications likely to write about intriguing aspects of my fair city, and then to annoy the crap out of them until they do what I wantsuck up as shamelessly as possible use my professional powers of persuasion to elicit the desired coverage.

Several weeks ago, I was pitching a piece on a conference scheduled for this fall. I used my handy PR software to search keywords like "technology," "design," and "creative" in hopes of finding publications that might have an interest in this particular conference.

I found what I was looking for, but I also found some publications with titles that made me laugh until my boss came in and asked what was so funny. In case you find them amusing as well, here's a list of honest-to-goodness publications:

Archives of Oral Biology

Cretaceous Research

Fish & Shellfish Immunology

Hormones & Behavior

Hot Rod Deluxe

Journal of Elastomers and Plastics

Journal of Pain

Knives Illustrated

Mushroom Growers’ Newsletter

Mutation Research and Genetic Toxicology

Pest Bulletin

Physics of Fluids

Poor Magazine

Smallbits Magazine

Threat Level

Tomato Magazine

I opted not to target any of those magazines and newsletters, though I do plan to keep the list handy for future reference. Who knows when I might need to pitch someone a piece on elastomers?

Got a favorite on that list? How about a publication or book title that's not on the list, but still makes you smile? Please share!

I like Shakespeare's analysis of Poor Magazine. I was picturing it more like just a publication put together by extremely lazy people who didn't care too much about quality, and just wanted to get their rag out there.

German Chocolate Betty, there are many days where I think I could use "The Theory of Hints."

Shakespeare, you know what's funny? Poor Magazine is the only one on that list I bothered to look up because I was so curious about the name. Here's the description, and you're actually not too far off: "Poor Magazine is a poor people led/indigenous people led, grassroots non-profit,arts organization dedicated to providing revolutionary media access, art, education and advocacy to silenced youth, adults and elders in poverty across the globe."

Sarah W, I love the word "annals!"

lynnrush, by "someone" you mean pretty much everyone reading this blog, right?! :)

Linda G, I'm sending you a gift subscription for your birthday.

CKHG, that sounds like a really cool magazine, actually, I'm tempted to look it up.

Matthew, see my note above to Shakespeare about Poor Magazine. If I remember right, it was founded by a couple of formerly-homeless individuals. Go figure, huh?

Maureen, no kidding, you've gotta wonder who subscribes to that one!

Steve, the fact that you're a subscriber is gravely disappointing to me, because now I must accept the fact that it's probably a car magazine and not porn. Thanks for killing my fantasy, dude.